dominoes and other small toys
by Sarapsys
Summary: Czes hates being a child.


**Possibly a bit AU (I've watched the show a couple times and don't completely get what was going on with Czes before he came to NYC so I just sort of made some stuff up) and fairly shamelessly angsty. Ugh. Still, I found it while cleaning out files mostly finished so figured I might as well tie up the end and inflict it on the public.**

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><p><strong>dominoes and other small toys<strong>

Czeslaw Meyer can't grow up.

After two hundred years, he's never gone through puberty, never gotten taller, never gotten stronger. Even mentally and emotionally. Over time he's come to realize that though he knows and remembers far, far more than any ten-year-old should or can, he doesn't think like an adult.

He thought he did, thought he understood them. Eat or be eaten, right? Don't trust anyone. Get them before they get you. Fermet taught him that, and he's always assumed that was how all grownups went about their business.

But now there's Maiza and everyone else, and they haven't devoured him. Haven't gotten rid of him, even though there's no real use they could have for him. They're taking him in, allowing and even expecting him to depend on them, and from all appearances actually seem _happy_ to have him.

He doesn't get it. He doesn't get _them_.

Czes hates being a child.

"Czes! Come play with us!"

"Come play with us, Czes!"

Czeslaw startles back. He didn't mean for Isaac and Miria to spot him, standing here peeking around the doorframe. The two of them wave frenetically at him, beaming.

It's a bewildering scene that he's happened upon. The two thieves, Ennis, and half the Mirtello and Gandor families have taken over the dance hall to build a giant domino maze, with Maiza presiding over the building pattern.

"No," he says, replacing his expression with one of casual disinterest. "I don't play."

Children play. Adults don't. Yet here are adults, playing. Czes isn't sure he trusts it.

"Come on, Czes," Luck says. "It's lots of fun. I used to do this when I was kid. Haven't you ever played with dominoes?"

"No, I haven't," Czes says, and leaves.

-o-

"Leave him be for now," Maiza says when a puzzled-looking Ennis moves to go after him. Everyone else has already turned their attention back to the dominoes, but the homunculus has taken Isaac and Miria's 'gift' very seriously. It's apparent how hard she's been trying to keep the boy in mind.

Ennis halts. "He's not alright," she says slowly, testingly. Emotions are still not very natural to her, though she's improved astronomically in the last year.

"No," Maiza says. "I don't think he is." At her questioning look, he explains, "He has been alone for some time. Months, at least. I have reason to believe his guardian was devoured."

"Szilard," Ennis says quietly, and Maiza nods.

"That is my suspicion."

"How did he escape?"

"I don't know," Maiza admits, "but I think it must have been…very difficult for him."

Difficult indeed, being a child abandoned, doomed to never grow up to an age to fend for himself.

It hadn't even occurred to Maiza back on the _Advenna Avis_ until a few days after the fact, his mind consumed with his own new immortality and the great secret that he had been burdened with, the loss of his brother and Szilard's cannibal rampage. It was only later, after learning that Silvie had put off immortality for the time being, that any thought of the child and the implications of eternal life—of eternal _youth—_for him had entered his mind.

"Perhaps you should have waited a few years before allowing Czes to drink," he'd said to Fermet, belatedly (uselessly). The child himself was far too young to be troubling with such concerns.

Judging from the regret he professed, Fermet had himself not thought much of it until Maiza brought the matter up.

But it had seemed the pair of them had been getting along fine despite it, after the diaspora.

Letters from them had grown fewer and farther between over the decades, and old-fashioned Fermet had never taken to new technologies like the telegraph and telephone that would have allowed more frequent communications. Eventually the two had dropped out of contact entirely. Maiza had not really made an effort to get back in touch. They had all scattered, after all, and gone their separate ways. He had his own life, and he had assumed that if Fermet and his ward had been in trouble, they would have asked for help. It wasn't until his encounter with Szilard a year ago and the man's claim that he'd devoured yet more of Maiza's old companions that he put the word out to find Fermet and Czeslaw, fearing the worst.

Finally, just weeks ago, his contacts in Chicago had found Czeslaw in an orphanage. One of his oldest friends, to whom he had a particular responsibility (he had essentially sentenced him to being a child for eternity, had he not?), alone and helpless and friendless.

Suffice it to say that in two and a half centuries, even after the events of a year ago, Maiza had never been so ashamed of his own negligence.

The shame only intensified when he met Czes at the train station. Gone was the trusting, open-faced little boy who would beg to be swung around in the air and to hear his old Academy stories. The Czeslaw Meyer who stepped off the train was quiet, skittish, and shuddered at being touched. The boy never said it outright, but the buried accusation under his tears and desperate grasp when he broke down shook Maiza's ribs like a church bell: _I missed you, Maiza—I trusted you. Why didn't you ever look for me?_

Greto, Fermet, all the others devoured by Szilard, and now little Czes. Sometimes Maiza can't remember why they had wanted the Grand Panacea so badly in the first place.

At least he has the rest of eternity to set things right. That's some consolation, he supposes.

-o-

He has nightmares. For a couple hundred years he's had them. The only times he doesn't are when he's too exhausted to dream at all.

It wasn't too terribly long ago, relatively speaking, that the nightmares were no different than his waking reality, and his little run-in with the Rail Tracer gave him a bone-grinding refresher to keep him on edge. Fermet is dead, but in some ways that makes it even worse. By devouring his tormentor he gained a lifetime's worth of memories of how much his guardian really did enjoy doing it. How he came up with his ideas, his thoughts as he watched him die and return over and over and over again.

And the Rail Tracer, he's still out there somewhere.

If they run into each other again, he will still be the same helpless little boy, because Czeslaw Meyer can't grow up.

(Too, he's afraid to go to sleep, because he might wake up and discover that the nightmare never really ended, and that all of this—Isaac and Miria and Ennis and Maiza and safety and no pain—all of this is the dream and not the reality.)

So tonight, like every night since he arrived in New York City, Czes goes to the library instead of to bed.

He's staying with Maiza right now, though Ennis has said he can come live with her, if he likes. To stay. Czeslaw isn't sure how he feels about that. Being under the same roof as other immortals makes him feel wire-taut and jittery around the edges. But he's decided to trust Maiza, at least for now. (It's easier to trust the homunculus. She turned on her creator, someone who she depended on for her very life, because he treated her badly. Czes can relate to that. And Ennis trusts Maiza. And so do Isaac and Miria, and Czes thinks maybe he can trust them. But then again, it might just be a plot among all of them to gain his trust and—) Well, he'll keep his eyes open. And anyway, it's a nice house, with plenty of space even though there seem to be a lot of people here right now.

Czes walks along the bookshelf, stepping quietly so his socked feet barely make a sound. Maiza has a lot of books. The man liked to read, Czes remembers that. Lots of grownups read. Fermet did, when he wasn't busy with…other things. He picks along the shelf until he finds a book that he can reach and Fermet's memories don't recognize. It's thick and heavy, and he almost drops it.

Lugging it over to the table, Czes clambers up onto the chair and switches on the reading lamp.

-o-

Some time later, Maiza finds him there along with a propped-up dictionary and a frown crinkling his brow. For a moment, he sees Firo, when _he_ was just a boy and learning to read. Of course, the books he pulled down from the shelves tended to be much thinner volumes, adventures and tales of heroes, nothing like the dusty old block this boy has taken on. But Czes sounds out the words to himself just like Firo did, mouth moving silently as his gaze swivels back and forth across the page. He's small for his age—for ten, anyway—like Firo was, too.

Czes looks up, and the resemblance shatters.

"What is it, Maiza?"

His pitch is oh-so-polite, but in the glare of the reading lamp his eyes are wary. How long did he know the man was at the doorway, Maiza wonders, and what was he thinking?

"You're up late," says Maiza.

Czeslaw stares at him for a beat, then remarks lightly, "I didn't know I still had a bedtime after my first century."

"I didn't mean that," Maiza says, sitting down across the table from him. The boy shifts back in his seat so subtly that the man wonders if he's even aware he's doing it. "It's late for anyone. And I wasn't saying you should go to bed."

"…Oh," says Czes, taken aback. Then with a look that borders on sly, observes, "I guess you're up late too, then."

Maiza smiles warmly, and that simple gesture seems to disarm the boy better than any clever retort could. "I had trouble sleeping. So what are you reading, Czes?"

With some difficulty, the boy tilts up the heavy book so Maiza can see the cover. He blinks in surprise. "Marshall's _Principles of Economics_? That's an…interesting choice."

"It did look interesting," Czes says airily, flipping the page.

"I didn't know you were interested in that sort of thing."

As soon as he says it, Maiza wishes he could take back the comment. The look of practiced nonchalance immediately freezes into a stone wall: trading one mask for another, much more forbidding one.

"Just because I _look_ ten doesn't mean I can't understand grownup things."

"I didn't mean that," Maiza says again.

"Because I _do_." The man's gaze seems to make Czeslaw uncomfortable. He fidgets. " …Most of it."

"Well then, you can borrow it for as long as you want," Maiza says carefully. "Or if you'd rather you can leave it and come back here whenever you like."

"Thank you, Maiza."

Silence threatens to settle, but before Maiza can fill it with the questions he's been meaning to ask, Czes beats him to the punch. "How come you were all playing with those dominoes before?"

"Well, it's…relaxing. Isaac and Miria got us on it a while ago. It's a way for us all to do something fun together. Makes us feel like kids again."

Small fingers fiddle with a yellowed page corner. "Why would you want that?" Czes mutters.

Wincing, Maiza takes a deep breath. "Czeslaw, I—I'm terribly sorry. I know that these past couple centuries must have been much more difficult for you than for the rest of us."

Czes freezes. "What do you mean, Maiza?" he says in a tone that fails abjectly to be cavalier.

"The rest of us…" Maiza pauses, casts about for phrasing that won't insult the boy. "If I had been thinking, at the time, I should have told Fermet to let you wait a few years before drinking the Panacea, and…choose a time that _you_ felt was right. I'm so sorry." The boy flinches at the mention of his former guardian, but he presses on. "Czes, I want you to know that if I had any idea, any idea at all that something had happened to him, I would have tried to find you immediately."

Haunted eyes drag reluctantly up to meet his gaze over the book. It pains him to force the boy to talk about Fermet's death, but it's vital that they confirm what they suspect. "Was it Szilard?"

Czes opens his mouth, closes it. Finally he shakes his head, shrinking in his chair as though he's trying to cringe his way right out of existence.

"It wasn't?" Chilled to the bone, Maiza stares back at him. The only other explanation is that another of their number has gone rogue—unless, perhaps another homunculus of Szilard's that Czes wouldn't have recognized? "Czes, I know it must be hard to talk about…but I need to you to tell me. What happened to Fermet?"

Unable to respond, the boy looks sharply down at his book again, and Maiza realizes he's trembling.

"If it's too difficult to talk about, you can show me," he suggests gently.

Czes's voice breaks free at a nearly hysterical pitch. "—Show you?"

He flinches with poorly concealed terror as Maiza stands and comes around the table, crouching by the boy's chair so they're eye to eye.

"What are you talking about?" the child demands, jerking backward so violently he nearly falls out of the chair, struggling as Maiza captures his right hand. "What are you doing? Stay away—!"

"I won't let anyone hurt you, Czes," he says softly. "You don't have to tell us anything you don't want to, but if you do, we can help you better. And if there's something out there we need to know about…. Just show me." As gently as he can, Maiza guides his hand as though it were a porcelain cup or baby bird.

The little boy's lip starts to tremble as he's speaking, eyes welling like at the train station. Tears track down his round cheeks, and after no more than token resistance Czes lets him press his small palm to Maiza's forehead.

He shows him everything.

-o-

Dim predawn light filters through the heavy library curtains. Czeslaw wakes gradually, feeling cozily warm and safe. Sighing contentedly, he snuggles closer.

The cozy feeling instantly evaporates when Czes realizes that the source of the warmth is Maiza. He's curled up in the other immortal's lap like a toddler being cuddled by a parent. Czes moves to scramble away, but a glance back at the man's face makes him hesitate.

Maiza's glasses are askew and his mouth slightly open, with one protective arm around him. His closed eyes aren't red or swollen anymore, but then, neither are Czeslaw's, and now that he's fully awake he remembers with no small amount of mortification crying himself to sleep in this very spot.

Even the smallest injuries and irritations heal so fast for them, on the outside.

Gingerly, Czes settles back into the crook of the man's arm. Even if it is all some horribly elaborate trap, Maiza's sleeping right now, and it's alright to pretend for a little while, isn't it?

And he didn't have any nightmares.


End file.
